I used to think Calgary's investment numbers out perform Edmonton's, (sorry for a super general statement) but I just learnt that I am quite wrong in all these years (happy to be wrong :))I am now open minded to both Cities, actually I will actually put EDM a little above CAL these days. 

I'm a long-term investor, and I do most of my investing in stocks and real estate, because I believe that over a very long period of time, they will outperform other asset classes.

Real Estate that makes commuting easier will typically outperform  (rents and value) over the longer term. 

One might expect Chipotle which is a growth stock to perform better than Microsoft a good old reliable blue chipper, but the 1 year chart shows a massive out performance by MSFT.Risk, and risk tolerance are probably the most overlooked aspects of any type of investing.

NOT in a war zones either...EVER - glad we agree on that :)Good marketing and clever list pulling will sometime out perform deep pockets...Knowledge is wealth, and power, and perhaps an investment in education is better than overpaying for properties? 

In the DC area, MFH might actually outperform SFH due to the fact that we have such a low supply on them, thus demand is high.

My suggestion would be to start with a single property, use conservative cost and holding projections, and then outperform.

The 400k+ segment probably was the surprise outperformer this year but seems like there's just a major supply issue at the sub-200k level.

I also know I could easily outperform the interest rate I'm being charged for the new home. 

What I've learned is that most direct marketers preach that long copy always outperforms short copy.